Increasing interest in perfecting the art of brewing coffee and tea has led to kettles that use small-diameter spouts to control the flow of water in order to pour the hot water slowly and in small quantities over coffee grounds or tea leaves. From the traditional kettles with large spouts, such as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 1,558,839 to Clark, the trend turned to mid-century kettles with short spouts, such as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,135,128 to Kuhn. Both designs were useful for pouring out large quantities of hot water quickly, but were not suited to pouring small amounts of hot water in a slow, measured, controlled flow over a longer time in order to produce more nuanced flavors. As the art of coffee and tea making has developed recently, interest turned to traditional “Japanese Style” kettles with long, thin spouts, often referred to as “gooseneck” kettles. FIG. 1 shows one such kettle 7 with a long, thin, curving gooseneck spout 8 from which hot water can be poured in slow, controlled quantities. Depending on the diameter of the spout, more or less hot water will pass through at any given inclination of the kettle 7, although such designs are susceptible to burping spurts of water when the energy of the hot water in the kettle finds release from the spout.
These designs have several disadvantages. Such kettles are not easily portable, so people who want to brew their own coffee or tea while traveling and staying in hotels are forced to use cheap coffee makers designed without regard to the subtleties of the brewing art. Those who prefer tea to coffee will readily appreciate that such hotel coffee makers are ill suited to brewing tea, since the pots have, over the years, come to impart a coffee flavor, and a bad flavor at that. Those who drink coffee and travel with their own coffee beans, grinders, funnels and filters, will have similar criticisms of such machines. But, traveling with a metal kettle is not practical, since they are bulky and the goosenecks are delicate and prone to bending, crimping, and breaking.
Moreover, gooseneck kettles are limited by the diameter spout supplied with the kettle. To change the flow characteristics of a gooseneck kettle, it is necessary to obtain multiple kettles, which is expensive and impractical. Moreover, while such kettles allow for a more controlled pour, they require skill to avoid spurting out boiling water from the spout.
Needed is a device that is easy to transport, especially when traveling, allows for the easy adjustment of the flow of hot water from the spout, gives a controlled pour, and avoids spurting boiling water.